I'll be visiting LA on Jan. 4th and will only have a couple days to roam the city. I intend to visit the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Ennis House, Watts Towers, Eames House (maybe), and few others if possible. The LA Arch. map thread I just saw is helpful.
I would also like to visit the Stahl House, but it looks expensive to book a tour if you even can at the moment. Without a tour, can you do anymore than just look at it from the street? What type of condition is the house currently in?
If you do not recommend the Stahl House, what is the next case study house you would recommend...I don't think I can see all of them.
Would you recommend visiting Gehry's residence?
I appreciate any help, this trip to LA will really be different for me...never been to California before.
Since it's pretty clear you are interested in modernist buildings, I'd also suggest these:
1. The Rudolph Schindler King's Road house. This is about as important a modern house as you can imagine.
There are several other good Schindler houses in the Silverlake area. I'd also recommend Schindler's Tischler house in Westwood, near UCLA. There are also two important, and very good Neutra apartment buildings in the same Westwood neighborhood, the Strathmore and Landfair Apartments. UCLA is a great camus and worth walking. The Collegiate Romanesque (heaven forbid) buildings are really beautiful: Royce Hall and the Library.
2. The Richard Neutra Lovell House (The Health House)
3. Wright's Barnsdall House (The Hollyhock House)
The Eames House IS a Case Study house - I recommend seeing it if you can. You'll need an appointment, since it can't be seen from the street. The Stahl house is in good condition, but it is not particularly impressive from the street. That house is all about the private back yard.
Gehry's house is good to see if you like that sort of thing. It's pretty impressive in a "f-you, neighbors!" sort of way. You can walk right up to it.
Another Gehry project I like and recommend you see is the Edgemar building on Main Street in Santa Monica - a really successful courtyard retail building - one of Gehry's best, IMO.
- I visited the Stahl House, it is in excellent condition. The only unfortunate addition to the house is the funky stone veneer fireplace / hearth, – very brady bunch-esque, they should have kept / revived the original. The people who give the tour of the house are the children (brother and sister) who lived in the house, so they know the house inside and out.
- Unfortunately (or fortunately) for the Stahl house , all you will see from the exterior is corrugated metal, so schedule a tour to get inside. However, if you want to see a Pierre Koenig home from the exterior, check out CSH 21(Bailey House) in Bel-air, if you can see it while it's raining, even better. It's tucked away and it's privately owned, but you can see 75% of the exterior of the house, which is worth it.
- Schindler House is a MUST. I think if you had to see only one home in Los Angeles, it must be the Schindler House. Yes, the home maybe over praised, but for good reason. That home is the epitome of the west and how free you can express your life style. More importantly, it really teaches you about taking precedents and re-identifying them into your own aesthetic typology. He took the adobe walls and Japanese screens and made spatial art by uniting the two languages. Schindler did an amazing job marrying the vernacular with the contemporary. That home is timeless, it leaves no cliche marks of time, it looks like it could have been designed last year or 200 years ago.
- Barnsdall House is a must because you can see the entire exterior of the house. It's right on top of a hill on a public park (Barnsdall Art Park), I recommend you go very early in the morning to see the sunrise of LA, and before the yoga peeps start camping near the house, but there is ALOT of space to wonder around. The view is great and it really allows you to understand the expressional freedom of the "west" and Los angeles. You get amazing views of all these homes daringly hanging off the hills and mountain.
- Neutra VDL, that home is a like a magicians box from inside. Mirrored walls and doors, folding walls, if you want to see how to make the best use of limited space, check out the VDL house.
- Gamble house. (My 2 favorite things about that house are the wood shingles, and the sleeping porches). The house is large and can be somewhat overwhelming to take in all in one tour. But nearby the gamble house (2 minutes away) is the Millard House by FLW, the better looking brother of the Freeman House and Ennis House (IMO).
There is so many more homes and buildings to see. Bradbury (and many other buildings on Broadway), the old neighborhoods of East LA (Boyle Heights), so much more. LA is huge, too much to take in all at once, take your time and don't worry if you can't see everything, because you're always seeing everything depending where you stand in LA ;).
Visiting the Stahl House
For those of you familar with the LA area,
I'll be visiting LA on Jan. 4th and will only have a couple days to roam the city. I intend to visit the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Ennis House, Watts Towers, Eames House (maybe), and few others if possible. The LA Arch. map thread I just saw is helpful.
I would also like to visit the Stahl House, but it looks expensive to book a tour if you even can at the moment. Without a tour, can you do anymore than just look at it from the street? What type of condition is the house currently in?
If you do not recommend the Stahl House, what is the next case study house you would recommend...I don't think I can see all of them.
Would you recommend visiting Gehry's residence?
I appreciate any help, this trip to LA will really be different for me...never been to California before.
Since it's pretty clear you are interested in modernist buildings, I'd also suggest these:
1. The Rudolph Schindler King's Road house. This is about as important a modern house as you can imagine.
There are several other good Schindler houses in the Silverlake area. I'd also recommend Schindler's Tischler house in Westwood, near UCLA. There are also two important, and very good Neutra apartment buildings in the same Westwood neighborhood, the Strathmore and Landfair Apartments. UCLA is a great camus and worth walking. The Collegiate Romanesque (heaven forbid) buildings are really beautiful: Royce Hall and the Library.
2. The Richard Neutra Lovell House (The Health House)
3. Wright's Barnsdall House (The Hollyhock House)
The Eames House IS a Case Study house - I recommend seeing it if you can. You'll need an appointment, since it can't be seen from the street. The Stahl house is in good condition, but it is not particularly impressive from the street. That house is all about the private back yard.
Gehry's house is good to see if you like that sort of thing. It's pretty impressive in a "f-you, neighbors!" sort of way. You can walk right up to it.
Another Gehry project I like and recommend you see is the Edgemar building on Main Street in Santa Monica - a really successful courtyard retail building - one of Gehry's best, IMO.
Neutra's VDL studio and residence in Silverlake. There are guided tours on Saturdays.
If you are going to be in Downtown LA I would also visit the Bradbury Building.
You can see some interesting beach houses in Venice along the "boardwalk". (e.g. Norton House by Gehry, Venice beach house by Antoine Predock.)
The Gamble house by Greene & Greene in Pasadena is worth a trip if you have time to spare.
- I visited the Stahl House, it is in excellent condition. The only unfortunate addition to the house is the funky stone veneer fireplace / hearth, – very brady bunch-esque, they should have kept / revived the original. The people who give the tour of the house are the children (brother and sister) who lived in the house, so they know the house inside and out.
- Unfortunately (or fortunately) for the Stahl house , all you will see from the exterior is corrugated metal, so schedule a tour to get inside. However, if you want to see a Pierre Koenig home from the exterior, check out CSH 21(Bailey House) in Bel-air, if you can see it while it's raining, even better. It's tucked away and it's privately owned, but you can see 75% of the exterior of the house, which is worth it.
- Schindler House is a MUST. I think if you had to see only one home in Los Angeles, it must be the Schindler House. Yes, the home maybe over praised, but for good reason. That home is the epitome of the west and how free you can express your life style. More importantly, it really teaches you about taking precedents and re-identifying them into your own aesthetic typology. He took the adobe walls and Japanese screens and made spatial art by uniting the two languages. Schindler did an amazing job marrying the vernacular with the contemporary. That home is timeless, it leaves no cliche marks of time, it looks like it could have been designed last year or 200 years ago.
- Barnsdall House is a must because you can see the entire exterior of the house. It's right on top of a hill on a public park (Barnsdall Art Park), I recommend you go very early in the morning to see the sunrise of LA, and before the yoga peeps start camping near the house, but there is ALOT of space to wonder around. The view is great and it really allows you to understand the expressional freedom of the "west" and Los angeles. You get amazing views of all these homes daringly hanging off the hills and mountain.
- Neutra VDL, that home is a like a magicians box from inside. Mirrored walls and doors, folding walls, if you want to see how to make the best use of limited space, check out the VDL house.
- Gamble house. (My 2 favorite things about that house are the wood shingles, and the sleeping porches). The house is large and can be somewhat overwhelming to take in all in one tour. But nearby the gamble house (2 minutes away) is the Millard House by FLW, the better looking brother of the Freeman House and Ennis House (IMO).
There is so many more homes and buildings to see. Bradbury (and many other buildings on Broadway), the old neighborhoods of East LA (Boyle Heights), so much more. LA is huge, too much to take in all at once, take your time and don't worry if you can't see everything, because you're always seeing everything depending where you stand in LA ;).
I appreciate your suggestions. I'm adding them to my list although I don't think I'll get to see all if them on this trip.
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